Free Republic

With a federal judge declaring a Pennsylvania ban on gay marriage unconstitutional on Tuesday afternoon, every state in the Northeastern corner of the country—Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and now Pennsylvania—has legalized same-sex marriage. Judge John Jones invoked the 14th Amendment to invalidate a 1996 Pennsylvania law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Like many of the other judicial decisions bringing down state marriage bans, this one framed the issue as a matter of civil rights. Jones wrote: In future generations the label same-sex marriage will be abandoned,...

HARRISBURG - A federal judge on Tuesday struck down Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriages, a landmark ruling that could clear the way for the Commonwealth to become the 17th state to legalize gay marriage. The decision by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III marked the first and most significant to date in a series of court challenges to the state's 1996 ban. It was not immediately clear if Gov. Corbett, whose administration had defended the law, would appeal the decision. The lawsuit, Whitewood v. Wolf, was brought by 23 plaintiffs who said Pennsylvania's law violates the state constitution by...

<p>Like those who stood against civil rights for African-Americans, gay-marriage foes are fighting a battle they can't win.</p> <p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Nine slender statues stand beneath a window to the Arkansas governor's office – bronzed, life-sized images of the black children who integrated Little Rock Central High School on Sept. 25, 1957 and helped ignite the Civil Rights era. "They defied prejudice," says Gregory Donaldson, an African-American Baptist minister from St. Louis visiting the display with his wife Nanette. "They defied bigotry."</p>

Did Donald Sterling ever try to use the power of the state to annul the marriages of thousands of people he never met because he disapproved of them? Ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich did.We’ve heard a lot recently about what constitutes “going too far” when it comes to holding people accountable for their offensive beliefs—a lot of stuff about “freedom of speech,” a lot of stuff about “tolerance,” a lot of stuff about “political correctness run amok.” Predictably relatively little of this has been said about Donald Sterling, of the Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling bears the dubious honor of being The...

Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop of the Episcopal church, publicly announced he is divorcing his husband, Mark Andrew, on May 3. The couple had been married since 2010, when New Hampshire legalized gay marriage. The union created an international uproar, and many Episcopalians broke away from the main church. "As you can imagine, this is a difficult time for us - not a decision entered into lightly or without much counseling," Robinson wrote in a letter to the Diocese of New Hampshire. "We ask for your prayers, that the love and care for each other that has characterized...

Notre Dame University employed the police to order a group of traditional marriage advocates off its campus late last week. Volunteers with the Tradition Family Property Student Action were given permission by an official campus student group to set up a table, according to TFP director John Ritchie. The police arrived shortly after the group began handing out pro-family literature and told them to “cease and desist.” On its website TFP Student Action claimed: The TFP handout, 10 Reasons Why Same-Sex “Marriage” is Harmful and Must Be Opposed, was being warmly received by students and faculty members alike. However, several...

On the Friday, April 18, All In show, during a discussion of the firing of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich for simply donating to a political campaign opposing same-sex marriage, guest Richard Kim of the far left The Nation magazine intoned that he found it "disturbing" that gay activist friends of his have expressed interest in "targeting" more people who have made similar donations, and who have declared they should "find out where they live." Kim: Here's a disturbing thing. I did ask some of my gay activist friends, I was like, "Look, here's a list; 6,500 people gave the...

Republicans will nominate someone younger than her, and it won't make a difference to young people.Our old colleague Patrick Caldwell has an interesting article up at Mother Jones about the way the Hillary Clinton campaign—or whatever we can call it at this point, since it isn't actually a campaign but it isn't exactly just a bunch of independent people doing their own thing either—is going after college students. I had forgotten how idiotically hostile the Hillary '08 campaign was toward college students in Iowa, but that's just one of innumerable mistakes that one presumes she'll attempt to correct this time...

CINCINNATI — A federal judge on Monday ordered Ohio to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples performed in other states, and civil rights attorneys and gay marriage supporters immediately began looking ahead to their next fight: a lawsuit seeking to force Ohio to allow gay couples to marry. Judge Timothy Black’s ruling was a partial but significant victory for gay rights supporters, who called it a stepping stone for full marriage equality in Ohio....

In Mississippi, five same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses on Tuesday, despite the fact that Mississippi has a constitutional ban. The Campaign for Southern Equality led the protest: However, waving signs saying “We do,” the crowd on Tuesday joined hands for a prayer led by Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of LGBT rights group Southern Equality. Then, the couples filed through metal detectors and into the courthouse. Once inside, the five couples lined up to apply for their licenses two-by-two at the office of the county clerk. The clerk noted that the forms did not have blanks for two males and...

The controversy around the concept of religious liberty — whether in the form of birth control mandates resulting from the Affordable Care Act, or nondiscrimination lawsuits related to same-sex marriage — can seem like a straightforward conflict between retrograde religion and the progressive state. But in truth the battle over religious liberty is a conflict within liberalism itself. In one corner are the liberal values of pluralism and tolerance. In the other are the liberal projects of egalitarianism and administrative efficiency. The quick and decisive defeat of Arizona's attempt to clarify its state version of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration...

The entire flap over SB 1062 in Arizona has left a lot of people scratching their heads, particularly given the virtual media explosion over the fate of the bill and what it means going forward. As it turns out, there is similar legislation pending in Georgia even as we speak, and even though public clamor has already led to the bill being taken off the calendar, the rampant hyperbole which marked the coverage of Jan Brewer’s decision is not in short supply. One of the leading shots across the bow was penned for CNN by the two person team of...

HOUSTON — A federal judge in Texas struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, ruling that the laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman violated the United States Constitution, handing gay-rights advocates a major legal victory in one of the nation’s biggest and most conservative states. The judge wrote that the amendment to the state Constitution that Texas voters approved in 2005 defining marriage as between a man and a woman — and two similar laws passed in 1997 and 2003 — denied gay couples the right to marry and demeaned their dignity “for no...

We critics of modern society tend to run into a problem very similar to the one you encounter when you go to a bar with 27 different beers on tap. Sometimes, we just don’t know where to begin. That’s how I feel when I read about the progressives working themselves into a lather over that religious freedom bill in Arizona. The legislation simply solidifies a business owner’s right to act according to his or her religious beliefs (I say “further solidifies” because the First Amendment already covers this ground pretty thoroughly). “News” outlets like CNN, engaging in blatant editorializing (surprise!),...

Would Jesus bake a cake for a gay wedding? It’s a weird question, but we do live in interesting times. And believe it or not, this has become one of the most heated debates of the week. That’s because, this week, liberal Christians pushed the argument that legislation allowing Christian florists and bakers to decline to work for same-sex weddings is tantamount to Jim Crow laws. The analogy is a stretch. Sexual orientation is not race — and permitting what would most definitely be a very small number of observant Christians to exercise their right of conscience is vastly different...

A group of conservative black pastors called Tuesday for Attorney General Eric Holder’s impeachment, saying the Obama administration has “sold out” with its support for gay marriage. The Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is targeting Holder after concluding that going after the nation's first black president would be a losing battle. "If Obama was a white man, he would be impeached," said Rev. William Owens, the group’s founder and president. "Obama has been given a free pass to do what he pleases, but I don't give him a pass. I'm very black, been black all my life. He doesn't...

In 2006, 57 percent of Virginia’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Last week, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 76 percent of Oklahoma’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. On January 14, 2014, U.S. District Judge Terence Kern ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 66 percent of Utah’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman....

PHOENIX — State senators voted Wednesday to let businesses refuse to serve gays based on owners' "sincerely held" religious beliefs. The 17-13 vote along party lines, with Republicans in the majority, came after supporters defeated an attempt to extend existing employment laws that bar discrimination based on religion and race to also include sexual orientation. Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, said that's a separate issue from what he is trying to do. But Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, said that's precisely the issue. "The bill opens the door for discrimination against gays and lesbians," he said. Yarbrough, however, said foes of SB...

Advocates of same-sex marriage feel themselves to be riding the cresting wave of history, and justly so. The force with which an idea has taken hold that is unprecedented in human history and unthinkable until yesterday, the speed at which it is sweeping aside customary norms, legal precedent, and the remnants of traditional morality is nothing short of breathtaking. That it should have achieved this feat thanks largely to sentiment, fashion, and the brute power of a ubiquitous global media, with so little real thought about its profound effect upon human self-understanding or its far-reaching practical implications, is more astonishing...

With full control of the House but not the Senate or the White House, Republicans lack the ability to enact positive legislation; yet they have the power to stop bad bills. Unfortunately, GOP leaders have made it clear they are willing to pass much of the Obama/Reid agenda because they don’t want confrontation with Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. For conservatives, that pretty much leaves us with the strategy of attempting to pass good bills out of the House just for messaging purposes. With unelected federal judges and administration bureaucrats forcing gay “marriage” on sovereign states across the country,...